ly well worth listening to, and the result was that they took him
at his own valuation, and, for the sake of hearing what he had to say,
quietly submitted to his assumption of authority as court of appeal.
So when he coolly declared both disputants wrong, they manifested no
resentment, but only an interest as to what he was going to say, while
the other fellows also looked up curiously.

"It would have been a big mistake for Goethe to have married her,"
pursued Potts, in his deliberate monotone, "but he was n't justified on
that account in breaking her heart. It was his business, having got her
in love with him, to get her out again and leave her where she was."

"Get her out again?" demanded Mathewson. "How was he to do that?"

"Humph!" grunted Potts. "If you have n't found it much easier to lose a
friend than to win one, you 're luckier than most. If you asked me how
he was to get her in love with him, I should have to scratch my head,
but the other thing is as easy as unraveling a stocking."

"Well, but, Potts," inquired Sturgis, with interest, "how could Goethe
have gone to work, for instance, to disgust Frederica with him?"

"Depends on the kind of girl. If she is one of your high-steppers as to
dignity and sense of honor, let him play mean and seem to do a few dirty
tricks. If she's a stickler for manners and good taste, let him betray a
few traits of boorishness or Philistinism; or if she has a keen sense
of the ridiculous, let him make an ass of himself. I should say the
last would be the surest cure and leave least of a sore place in her
feelings, but it would be hardest on his vanity. Everybody knows that a
man would 'rather seem a scamp than a fool.'"

"I don't believe there's a man in the world who would play the voluntary
fool to save any woman's heart from breaking, though he might manage the
scamp," remarked Mathewson. "And anyhow, Potts, I believe there 's no
girl who would n't choose to be jilted outright, rather than be juggled
out of her affections that way."

"No doubt she would say so, if you asked her," replied the imperturbable
Potts. "A woman always prefers a nice sentimental sorrow to a fancy-free
state. But it isn't best for her, and looking out for her good, you
must deprive her of it. Women are like children, you know, our natural
wards."

This last sentiment impressed these beardless youths as a clincher,
and there was a pause. But Mathewson, who was rather strong on the
moralities,